In EA I was convinced that using Tadpoles and developing Superpowers was a slippery slope towards becoming an Illithid and a GAME OVER screen
And I wasn't. It always sounded like unfulfillable promise made by devs who don't quite know yet where they are going with it. A lengthy, story driven RPG won't be cut short because you used a skill one too many times, just as you weren't threated by a timer of an illythid power. From the very beginning BG3 had "do what you want" philosophy, and there was no way Larian would lock you into "bad ending" or lock your progress because you dared to use one of the toys they gave you.
Whenever Emperor existed or not couple things were always clear to me - tadpole power are an equivalent of Source magic from D:OS2, we won't get rid of it throughout gameplay nor we are really threatened by it. The story will make a turn to Bhaal and BG1&2 events. Tadpole is mosty a narrative hook to push our character through the adventure (like being a Bhaalspawn, beind Godwoken, having Relic in Cyberpunk etc.) and won't have actually much impact in itself. Hmmm, maybe simply because I never believed Larian will deliver on ideas set up in act1, I was also not disappoined by what followed... in fact I thought it transitioned into act3 better than I feared.
Also light spoiler for upcoming endings:
using tadpole is also getting somewhat addressed in the upcoming endings from what I have seen. Nothing earthshattering, but something more clearly tied to use tadpole use.
